A lot of events have been happening this week, most likely so that everyone can make a last minute push in shows and such before the holidays. Then we have nothing to write about. Gotta love when a whole industry shuts down for a month or so.

Blu (photo vua Nuart)

Anyways, so here is what has been going on:

Tonight is the opening of the London Miles Gallery“The Idol Hours”. The show is a group show that gives artists like Luke Chueh, Travis Lampe and Scott Young the opportunity to portray artworks from the art canon in a modern sense

Factory Freshwill be hosting a Block Part in Brooklyn Nov. 20th with a live mural painting from Gai, Imminent Disaster, Chris Stain and Skewville. The Burning Candy Crew will also be showing new portions of their ongoing documentary Dots

Remi/Rough has been busy in England lately. He has a new print released, designed the decor of the new Wahaca Soho eatery, and put up a nice piece in Birmingham with time lapse video

Finally, A Barry McGeeretrospective will take place in 2012 in Berkeley, California in conjunction with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The two organizations were awarded a $100,000 grant by the Andy Warhol Foundation to put on the show

Unusual Image has some great photos of the Best Ever show that took place at Blackall Studios last night

Stolenspace will play host to the second solo show by Ronzo entitled “Crackney’s Finest.” The show will open Nov. 19th

Just got back from Jordan Seiler’s show at Vincent Michael Gallery. I’ll have more on that in the next few days, but I found an awesome store in the same area as the gallery: Jinxed. It sells cool toys and the like. Here’s what I didn’t write about this week while I was busy procrastinating and thinking about The Underbelly Project.

Elisa and maybe other Vandalog writers are going to disagree with me on this, but I’m not really digging Aakash Nihalani’s new work at his solo show in New York. I guess I just prefer Aakash outdoors.

Okay, this is just annoying. When you give people freedom to say anything, of course some asshole is going to be racist once in a while, but that doesn’t mean free speech should stop. These are college students, they should be able to think this through beyond the immediate things going on around them. Or just paint the damn tunnel in murals of people of all races and creeds holding hands?

Note from the editor: It should be mentioned that in the past I’ve been paid by the people making DOTS to help out on various parts of the project (though I was paid in artwork). Also, I still do communicate with them and help them out in small ways, but I don’t get paid for that. Also, for more info on this project and how you can help the film get made, check out Arrested Motion. – RJ

Some of you may remember us covering the newest up and coming street art documentary DOTS a few months back. Well now the mysterious filmmaker known only as as The Baron has released this teaser trailer (above) for the documentary which follows the members of London’s notorious Burning Candy Crew around various parts of the world.

Juxtapoz has also recently conducted a interview with The Baron where he talks about his relationship with BC, how he came up with the idea for DOTS and what he hopes to accomplish once its ready for public viewing. You can read that interviewhere

On July 24th and 25th, the “Whitecross Street Party: The Rise of the Non-comforsits” will be in full swing in London. The whole street will turn into a creative canvas for leading street artists including Shepard Fairey, Dotmasters, Filthy Luker, Eelus, Burning Candy, and much more. Right now, everyone involved is starting to put up the public pieces, but come the weekend, the road will be turned into a giant block party. Let’s just hope these pieces get to stick around for awhile because I am really liking what I see thus far.

The full list of artists and activities can seen on the Whitecross website here.

Here are some pictures of the setup of the event that were caught today.

Tonight was the last screening (for now) of Dots, Burning Candy’s film-in-progress. It’s a project I’ve quite enjoyed being involved with, so I’m happy to say that some of the paintings we had on display at those screenings will move right over to High Roller Society for their upcoming show Candy Shop (which Gold Peg has designed the flyer for). And the Dots box set of prints will be at HRS too.

The press release:

Ignoring the limitations and expectations of the graffiti art scene, London based Burning Candy have made a name for themselves as being amongst the most prolific and creative street artists in the UK. As individuals they are some of the biggest names both on the street and in the galleries that exhibit their work. However it is their collaborative work producing epic genre-defying murals that has cemented them as an unstoppable powerhouse. To coincide with DOTS, a Burning-Candy-film-in-the-making, High Roller Society proudly presents CANDY SHOP, an exhibition of selected works by each of the crew’s 9 core members: CEPT, CYCLOPS, DSCREET, GOLD PEG, LL BRAINWASHED, MIGHTY MO, ROWDY, SWEET TOOF, and TEK 33. The exhibition, which runs from 8 May – 22 May, showcases the chaotic harmony of Burning Candy’s street-inspired individual works in a kaleidoscope of crazy colours, mediums, and styles.

Over the past four years, the prolific Burning Candy crew came together naturally through shared ideals of what they each wanted to achieve as artists, both in the studio and on the street. They all believe in big colourful graffiti that challenges passers-by in a positive way, and that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Think one-eyed King Kong-sized monkeys with gnashing gums and clothes pegs for teeth, clenching a half-crocodile, half-owl in one hand, and a slimy pink super-brain being speared by a pitch-fork in the other, looming over trendy Londonistas as they skip to their day jobs and prowl the pubs. With a passion and obsession for graffiti at their core, Burning Candy’s ingeniously collaborative street creatures have both fueled and furthered their individual studio work, where the usage of endless mediums has caused an oddly desirable thirst for more in their extensive following.

As a very loose synopsis, Dots will prompt the crew members to exceed even their own expectations and produce a work that is bigger and more inspired than anything they have done before. To achieve this, the film will follow each of the artists as they visit a place that offers inspiration to their artistic style, taking both Burning Candy and the viewer on a journey around-the-world as they learn more about where their art has originated, explore it’s importance in their lives and discover how they can take their ideas further.

To help raise funds and make Dots a reality, Burning Candy has put together a limited edition set of 9 screenprints, one print from each member of the crew. The prints, which are 2-colors, A5 sized, and an edition of just 150, are each beautifully presented in a bespoke hand-screenprinted box. But, these prints aren’t only artwork; anyone who buys a box set will also own the rights to 0.05% of the film’s revenues for the next 10 years. High Roller Society will have a limited amount of Burning Candy Box Sets available to purchase. A percentage of the proceeds from both the box sets and the crew’s art works will go toward the film, as well as to a member of Burning Candy who has recently fell upon difficult times. CANDY SHOP opens on 7 May to anyone and everyone willing to sink their teeth into Burning Candy’s deliciously twisted treats.

Yesterday, I posted about a box set of screenprints by Burning Candy. The prints are being used to fund the making of Dots, a documentary being made about the crew. Most of the film hasn’t actually been filmed yet, but the first 20 minutes are so are done. The first segment of the film explains the history of the crew and follows one artist on a journey to bring their art to the next level.

We’ve organized a few screenings of this first part of Dots for next week. These will be the first time that any of the film has been shown publicly. In addition to screening the film, we’ll also be displaying (and selling) the print set and original paintings from the entire crew.

If you want to be at this first look at Dots and the Burning Candy screeprints box set, just sent an email to rsvp@dotsfilm.com. The guests for each night (Tuesday and Thursday) are going to be randomly selected and notified by email by Saturday May 1st and we’ll let you know exact details of when and where.

Recently, I’ve been working with Burning Candy (Cept, Cyclops, Dscreet, Gold Peg, LL Brainwashed, Mighty Mo, Rowdy, Sweet Toof and Tek33) on a project that’s really got me excited. For me, Burning Candy are some of the most interesting and talented street artists living in the UK right now. In the UK, there isn’t a street artist who gets up harder, a graffiti writer who hits better spots or a crew that pushes the boundaries of their art further than the members of BC. So about this project…

A man called The Barron is directing a film about the rest of Burning Candy called Dots. This isn’t your ordinary graff film though. Since The Barron is a friend of the crew, he’s got more access than the standard documentary filmmaker would ever get. So far, he’s filmed and edited the first 20 minutes or so of the film. The next 70 minutes? It’s on its way, but Burning Candy needs the help of their fans to make it happen. To fund the making of the Dots, BC have made a box set of prints. All nine members of the crew have contributed an image to this print release. Since I’m working with BC on this print release, I’m obviously biased, but I don’t think there’s a bad image in the bunch.

So here’s the press release with all that vital info:

To help raise funds and make Dots a reality, Burning Candy has put together a limited edition set of 9 screenprints, one print from each member of the crew. The set will come in a hand-screenprinted bespoke box. The prints are 2-colors and A5 sized and the edition size is just 150. These prints aren’t only artwork; anyone who buys a set of prints will also own the rights to 0.05% of the films revenues for the next 10 years. 100% of the profits from these prints will go to funding the making of Dots.

The prints will be released online imminently for just £500. In the mean time, you can email sales(at)dotsfilm.com for more information.

And for those curious about my personal involvement in the film and print release, I’m helping out friends and artists that I believe in, but I’m also getting paid for my work.

Don’t ask me how it happened, I’m still not entirely sure, but if you happen to pick up a copy of Vogue Italia this month, you’ll find an article about me and street art on page 96. I don’t speak Italian, but based on Google’s very rough translation, the article seems to be about The Thousands and me proselytizing street art as “museum quality.” So that’s pretty cool. And, because a. I’m no fashion icon, and b. it was an article about the virtues of street art, instead of photos of me taken by a famous photographer, the article features some pictures from The Thousands book of work by Burning Candy, Skewville, Elbow-toe and Chris Stain, so be on the look out for next year’s line of Skewville inspired tshirts at H&M.

As previously mentioned, the Burning Candy crew painted an amazing mural at The Thousands last month. I spoke with Sweet Toof about that mural, so here’s that conversation and a time lapse of the mural going up:

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